by Vampire Brat
“Did you really?” Now that was interesting.
“Indeed I did, Miss Spookie. It had injured its leg and been deserted by the wolf pack. I took it home and raised it myself. A wonderful companion….” Sir Horace sighed like he always does when he remembers the old days, which in his case are extremely old days. “Ah well,” he said, “I must be getting along.” He suddenly stuck one foot out and put it on the next step. He looked very wobbly.
“Would you like some help, Sir Horace?” I asked.
“That would be most welcome, Miss Spookie,” said Sir Horace in a smiley kind of voice. So I took his right arm—very carefully—and we got to the top of the stairs in no time at all. “Along here, if you please, Miss Spookie,” said Sir Horace, so I walked along with him to the little secret door under the attic stairs.
Now I knew where Sir Horace was heading—he was going to his secret room. I helped him open the door and watched as he squeezed through, then I closed the door behind him. I listened to his footsteps fading away down the secret passage that runs behind the wooden paneling on the wall, and then a loud crash of thunder reminded me that I had an urgent appointment with some lightning.
I ran down the corridor, through two moldy curtains, and past the monster bathroom. I zoomed along the zigzag passage, jumped over the trapdoor to nowhere, climbed up the old apple ladder and scrambled onto the ledge. And there I was, outside the old door to the haunted turret. I turned the key and went inside.
3
LIGHTNING
There are lots of turrets in Spookie House, but the best one to watch thunderstorms from is the haunted turret. The haunted turret is not really haunted. Well, I’ve never seen a ghost there and I have spent many hours looking. But it is the tallest turret and is so high in the sky that you feel as though you are right in the middle of the storm. It is very exciting.
After you push open the little door with the weird creak that goes “Eeh-aaaah…ooooh,” you climb up some rickety, cobwebby stairs, but you must not step on the third stair or the seventh because they are rotten because of some very big woodworms who live there. The stairs go around two corners and are really dark and steep. At the top is a dusty old velvet curtain, which is inhabited by some fierce moths that do not like being disturbed and dive-bomb your head, so it is best to squeeze through the curtain very slowly and carefully. Once you are in the turret you have to walk around the edge because there is a big hole in the middle of the floor where a bathtub fell through. Aunt Tabby used to keep lots of old bathtubs in the turret, but she made Barry help her take them all out after that.
Anyway, as I carefully walked around the edge of the turret I was really happy to see a bright flash of lightning. I stopped and counted the seconds until the loud crash of thunder came. It was not even two seconds, more like one and a half. That meant that the middle of the storm—the exciting part where the lightning is right overhead—was really close. Great, I thought, I’m here just in time. I climbed onto an old box by the window so that I could see out, as the window is very high up. It is also very dirty, as Aunt Tabby does not clean windows because it lets the light in and Aunt Tabby thinks that houses should be nice and gloomy, which is why she paints everything brown. I think she would even paint me brown if I stood still for long enough.
I rubbed a clean patch on the glass and peered out. Even though it was not yet dinnertime it was almost dark outside. There were heavy gray clouds filling up the sky and a few fat spots of rain were falling. It was perfect—and really spooky.
In the distance, all misty through the rain and the grubby window, I saw a car’s headlights. I watched the lights, expecting them to keep going along the big road, but to my surprise the car turned off onto the lane that goes by Spookie House. I wondered where it was going—since Aunt Tabby put up a sign that says DANGER, UNEXPLODED MINES not many cars drive past. As it drew nearer I could see that it was going really slowly, as if it was looking for somewhere, and then it stopped—right outside our front gate.
At the very moment that it drew up outside Spookie House there was the most enormous Craaaack. A brilliant white streak of lightning shot down and hit the car. It was amazing. A blue flame whizzed around the outside of the car and I held my breath, waiting for it to explode.
It was very disappointing—nothing happened. The car did not explode at all. Instead the rain started to pour from the sky in buckets and the car didn’t even sizzle. It was a weird car. It was very long and I knew I had seen cars like that before but I could not think where. The window was misting up with my breath, so I rubbed it again and then I could see more clearly. The car outside Spookie House was a hearse! With a coffin in it.
I wished I had Wanda’s telescope. I could just about see three people sitting in the back of the hearse with the coffin—a girl who looked almost grown up, a little kid, and an old lady. The driver was sitting on his own in the front; he wore a top hat and had a very white face that almost shone through the window.
All the time I was watching the hearse, thunder was rolling around the sky, and in the distance every now and then lightning streaked down from the clouds. The rain was falling harder now, it was splashing in through the rotten window frame and dripping onto my socks. I rubbed the window clear with the end of my sleeve, and when I looked again the white-faced driver had gotten out. He opened an enormous black umbrella, and was holding the door open for the old lady. She stepped out of the hearse very carefully and was followed by the little kid and the almost grown-up girl.
Even though I did not want to be a detective anymore because now I had decided that I was going to be a werewolf hunter, I still practiced my detecting skills when I got the chance. I thought the people in the hearse were on their way to a funeral. That was pretty obvious because if they had been on their way back from the funeral, the coffin would not have been there. And it was obvious that they were going to a funeral and not just taking the coffin out for a ride in a thunderstorm because they were dressed in black and were wearing hats. The old lady had a veil covering her face and the little kid had a funny black cap on. I watched the almost grown-up girl get out of the hearse. She wore a neat black hat perched on the back of her head and a black dress almost down to the ground, the kind that I would not mind wearing when I grow up. She lifted the hem of the dress out of the way of the huge puddle that always lurks outside our gate when it rains and she tiptoed up the path underneath the umbrella along with the old lady, while the little kid hung back in the rain and looked like he didn’t want to be here.
A flash of lightning lit up the purple sky, and there was a sudden crash as the thunder rolled back over the house. Far away downstairs, I heard the doorbell ring.
Yes! We had a hearse with a coffin and spooky visitors in the middle of a thunderstorm. What could be better?
4
THE HEARSE PARTY
I made it down to the front door at the same time as Aunt Tabby—in fact I bumped into her as she was climbing back inside through the dome thingy that leads onto the roof. She was dripping wet and not in a good mood. We raced all the way down to the hall and it was a dead heat, although as Aunt Tabby has longer arms than me she reached the door handle first. There was no sign of Brenda, who usually races Aunt Tabby to the door, so I guessed she was still hiding under the kitchen table with wimpy Wanda.
Aunt Tabby threw open the huge old front door to Spookie House and went kind of pale. Her mouth opened but she did not say anything, which was very unlike Aunt Tabby, who always has something to say even when you wish she hadn’t.
All four of the strangers just stood out there in the rain staring at Aunt Tabby and me. They did not smile or say anything. They had deathly white faces and narrow eyes that bored right through you and out to the other side. I felt like one of those turret steps that the woodworm had eaten. It was weird.
Aunt Tabby made a kind of cough/croak noise, which could have meant almost anything at all. None of the hearse party replied. A strange yellow light came from th
e distant lightning flashes and all the time the rain pelted down. It ran down the silent people’s faces and dripped off the ends of their noses.
Suddenly Aunt Tabby woke up. She shook herself and yelled in a kind of panicky voice, “Drac! Drac! Your mother’s here!”
Wow! I had no idea that Uncle Drac had a mother.
I did not think that Aunt Tabby was being very polite, as she always says you should not yell for someone, you should go and find them and ask them nicely, Araminta. And also she had not even asked the visitors in, and one of them was her mother-in-law, which meant that she was my great-aunt, so I decided to be polite and show Aunt Tabby what you should do.
“Good afternoon, Great-aunt,” I said, since I did not know her name. “Welcome to Spookie House. Please come in.” Then I stepped back right onto Aunt Tabby’s toes and Aunt Tabby yelped. But I must have said the right thing because the old lady strode into the house. She was scary—but what was even scarier was a double-headed dead ferret that she wore around her neck, which stared at me with its four glass eyes as she swept by. The driver shook the umbrella out, carefully placed it in the monster umbrella stand by the door, and went back to the car.
The little kid, who looked like a drowned rat, trotted in next, and he was followed by the almost grown-up girl. She was wearing black lacy socks and cute little black boots. I smiled at her and she kind of half smiled back—I think. They all stood lined up in the hall and said nothing. The only sound you could hear was water dripping onto the floor.
There was another crash of thunder and the front door suddenly slammed shut. Bang! Aunt Tabby and I jumped about three feet in the air.
And then Uncle Drac’s mother spoke. “Well, Tabitha,” she said in a scratchy kind of voice. “We meet again.” She did not exactly sound pleased about it, I thought.
Aunt Tabby gulped like one of Barry’s frogs and then she hissed in my ear, “Where is Drac? Go and fetch him, Araminta. Quick!”
I didn’t really want to go because I thought the creepy relatives were really interesting, but I could see that Aunt Tabby needed help and fast, so I raced up the big stairs and along the landing until I found the little red door to Uncle Drac’s turret.
Uncle Drac generally sleeps in the day because he does not like the light very much. On the other side of Spookie House from the haunted turret there is a really tall turret—this is where Uncle Drac keeps his bats. Aunt Tabby has been trying to make Uncle Drac get rid of all the bats since Barry does not sell enough bat poo and it keeps piling up inside the turret. But Uncle Drac loves his bats. Last month Aunt Tabby told him that he had to decide between her and the bats, but Uncle Drac took so long trying to make up his mind that Aunt Tabby decided to forget that she had said anything and the bats stayed—and so did she.
I like going to see Uncle Drac in his turret since I am not really allowed there because it is very dangerous. There are no floors to stand on—Uncle Drac took them all out so that the bats can fly around as much as they like and pretend that they are in a really big bat cave.
I carefully pushed open the little red door and peered in. Uncle Drac was fast asleep in his big flowery sleeping bag. You may be wondering where Uncle Drac puts his sleeping bag if there aren’t any floors, although you have probably guessed—he hangs it from the rafters.
“Hellooo…” I called very quietly, as it is not a good idea to wake up Uncle Drac very suddenly because he can jump out of his sleeping bag if he gets a shock, which happened once when Big Bat landed on his head. Uncle Drac broke both his legs, but they are okay now. “Hellooo…” I called again. “Wake up, Uncle Drac.”
Uncle Drac stirred. “WharrisitMinty?” he muttered.
“Your mother’s here, Uncle Drac.”
“What?” Uncle Drac’s eyes slammed open and he nearly leaped right out of his sleeping bag.
“Careful!” I said.
It was okay—just. Uncle Drac kind of slid back down into his sleeping bag and groaned. “Mother…here?”
“Yes. She’s come to see you. Isn’t that nice?”
“Nice?” asked Uncle Drac, sounding puzzled. And then he said in a really worried voice, “Oh my goodness, where’s Tabby?”
“She’s downstairs, Uncle Drac.”
“With Mother?”
“Yes.”
As soon as I said that, Uncle Drac clambered out of his sleeping bag, swung himself up onto the rafter, and walked like a tightrope walker to the door and squeezed through. “Come on, Minty,” he said, grabbing hold of my hand, “we can’t leave Tabby alone with Mother a moment longer,” and we ran down the stairs to the hall.
It was empty. Everyone had disappeared. There was nothing left but a great big steaming puddle of water.
This was getting better and better. Everyone had vaporized!
5
MAX DRAC
It was very disappointing. No one had vaporized at all. Uncle Drac and I found them all sitting at the long table in the third-kitchen-on-the-right-just-around-the-corner-past-the-boiler-room. Brenda and Wanda had managed to crawl out from underneath the table, and Wanda was helping to pour the hot water into Brenda’s biggest teapot—which is about the size of a bucket.
The whole kitchen smelled of wet wool—Uncle Drac’s mother, the weird little kid, and the almost grown-up girl were sitting at the table, steaming quietly as their thick black clothes began to dry off. No one said a word. Aunt Tabby sat glaring at the end of the table while Uncle Drac’s mother was busy eyeballing her in the kind of way that Aunt Tabby sometimes eyeballs me.
Close up I could see that you could not mistake Uncle Drac’s mother for anyone else in a million years. She looked just like him. She had the same square, pale face and the same brilliant pointy teeth that just showed over the corners of her mouth—but she did not smile like Uncle Drac. She glowered. So did the double-headed ferret.
The almost grown-up girl looked very interesting. She had long dark hair with black ribbons threaded through it, and I really liked her little black hat, which had lots of black lace and feathers all over it. I thought I saw a stuffed mouse on it too, but I was not sure and I didn’t want to stare too hard. The almost grown-up girl looked like she might not appreciate that.
The little kid was weird. He had squinty eyes and a really pale face like he had never, ever been out in the sun. His shiny black hair was swept back and you could still see the comb marks in it. He was wearing a starched white collar, a tie, and a buttoned-up jacket, and he was sitting on my chair, with his little legs swinging to and fro. He was quite pudgy and was busy chewing some candy. I could see he had a great big bag of candy stuffed into each pocket but he wasn’t about to offer any to Wanda or me.
I gave him my fiendish frog stare but he stared right back and he didn’t blink. Not once. That had never happened to me before.
Suddenly Uncle Drac broke the silence. “Hello, Mother,” he said. “You remember Araminta.” Then he said to me, “Minty, this is your great-aunt Emilene.”
I smiled and was about to say hello when Great-aunt Emilene snorted like a camel and said, “I remember Araminta. Odd little scrap.”
Well. She got a fiendish frog stare too, and the almost grown-up girl almost smiled.
“And these, Minty, are your cousins, Mathilda and Maximilian,” said Uncle Drac.
I had heard Uncle Drac talking about them sometimes but I had never met them before. “Hello,” I said. Mathilda just smiled kind of mysteriously and Maximilian shoved another piece of candy in his mouth and kept right on chewing. I was really glad that the almost grown-up girl was my cousin, but I could have done without the little kid.
Great-aunt Emilene did her camel impression again and said in a loud voice, “Well, Drac, you’re looking sickly. I see Tabitha is still not feeding you properly.”
“Oh…er…” Uncle Drac did not seem to know what to say, and Aunt Tabby said nothing at all, which really surprised me.
“I did not receive a reply to my letter, Drac,” said his moth
er sternly.
Uncle Drac blinked. “What letter?” he asked.
“Don’t make excuses, Drac. As I was saying, I did not get a reply to my letter so I came anyway. Maximilian’s parents have been called away on an urgent assignment. I expect you know how successful their ghost-hunting business is now. A good deal more successful than the bat poo business, I would imagine.”
She sniffed loudly and I thought Uncle Drac looked upset. But she didn’t care, she just carried on in her scratchy voice, like chalk squeaking on a blackboard, “Well, Drac, as I said in my letter, Mathilda is off to college and I have a cruise booked that I have no intention of missing. Maximilian’s trunk is in the car. You can help Perkins out with it and then we’ll be gone.”
At the mention of “gone,” I saw Aunt Tabby smile faintly, but Uncle Drac looked like something had hit him over the head. “Trunk?” he asked.
His mother sighed just like Aunt Tabby sighs when I say something that she does not agree with. “Help Perkins lift it out, will you, Drac?”
Just then Brenda put the teapot down on the table with such a thump that everyone and everything, including all the cups, jumped. “Oops, sorry. Clumsy me,” Brenda trilled rather nervously. She started pouring the tea, and I went and sat down at the end of the table. Wanda came and sat next to me, then she leaned over and said right in my ear, “It will be nice to have Maximilian staying with us, won’t it, Araminta? I told him he could have our Saturday bedroom.”
“What?” I gasped. The Saturday bedroom is my favorite bedroom.
“It will be such fun,” said Wanda, who had obviously not noticed that I most definitely did not think it would be anything like fun. “We can sleep in our Friday bedroom on Saturday, too. That would be really exciting.”
Wanda’s idea of what is exciting is not exactly the same as mine.